Saturday, August 12, 2017

Flying home from the east coast a few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to be seated in the same row as Doug, and we talked for several hours like old friends. When he learned I was next going to Portland, Oregon, on a road trip and that my husband was excited to see the Evergreen Air & Space Museum in McMinnville, he told me he had flown several of the aircraft on display there. I asked him to write down the names so we could look for them.

Once there, it was indeed a wonderful scavenger hunt for my kids to look for these planes. So, Doug, I have some feedback!

The T33: This is parked in front of the space museum. (Let me pause and say this is an incredible facility with two huge hangars, one for air and one for space. I'll blog later about the space side).

The T33

And next on the list was the F102:

And the F106, similar to the 102, but with its tail pointing up:

The RF-4, a fighter bomber: there was a different version on the floor of the space museum, a docent told us, but we couldn't seem to locate it.

T28: the Evergreen had one but got rid of it.

T37: the Evergreen was supposed to get one, but never did.

The T38: well, I thought I was told by museum staff that it was this black one hanging from the ceiling but I must've misunderstood.

We were told The Evergreen will be getting an F16 from the Oregon Airguard and a Tornado, which was a British/German/French plane with Luftwaffe colors. (Actually, I just googled that because it seemed too odd; substitute Italian for French and it's correct!)

And you know what the Evergreen already has?

Yeah, the Spruce Goose. Which should be called the Birch Goose because that's what it's made of. The largest airplane ever made. It's hard to tell what you're looking at in this photo, but basically the large thing overhanging these people's head is just one wing. I'll blog about the Spruce Goose more later.

Back to Doug. It was amazing to see these planes in which you made surveillance runs during your many years of service. Thank you for your service to our country, Doug!

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

Today on my blog I welcome Christine Verstraete, who has written
several novels inspired by the Lizzie Borden saga. Her first book cast Lizzie as
a zombie hunter, explaining that Abby and Andrew Borden had to be struck
down—they were undead. Her second has just released, and it focuses on a key member
of the story, Dr. Bowen, who lived across the street and was called upon to assist
in the earliest moments of discovery of Mr. Borden's body (if I may use the word
"discovery" loosely....)

Without any further ado, here is Christine answering a few questions
I posed, and some excerpts from her book. Welcome, Christine!

Hi Erika, thanks for inviting me to your blog!

What compelled you to
write about Dr. Bowen?

Dr. Bowen is a fascinating
character since, as you know when you start reading the Lizzie Borden trial
transcripts, you realize that the doctor was quite involved in the aftermath of
the Borden murders. Maybe too involved? So much isn’t explained about certain
actions he and others took that you can’t help but read between the lines! One
of the police officers at the trial testified that he saw the doctor burning a
suspicious note. Even the newspapers described him at the trial as appearing
rather protective of Lizzie. An interesting relationship that raises some
questions, it seems.

The fun part of writing this book
was taking the Borden story in a new direction. This was such an unexpected,
horrific and shocking event for many reasons that I had to wonder: despite
Bowen being a medical professional, how did this event really affect him? Did
it haunt him? And did the history of Fall River play into the evil in the city?

Does Lizzie appear in this book also?

Lizzie is such an integral part of
the story that you can’t leave her out, but she doesn’t appear in this book in
person. However, she is one of the haunting elements of the story. That’s all I
can say without giving it away!

About The Haunting of Dr. Bowen, A
Mystery in Lizzie Borden’s Fall River:

Gruesome deaths haunt the industrial city of Fall River,
Massachusetts.Dr. Seabury
Bowen—physician to the infamous Lizzie Borden—swears he’s being stalked by
spirits, though his beloved wife thinks it’s merely his imagination. But the
retired doctor insists that neither greed nor anger provoked the recent
sensational axe murders in Fall River. Rather, he believes the city is poisoned
by bad blood and a thirst for revenge dating back to the Indian and Colonial
wars.Now, two
years after the Borden murders, Dr. Bowen is determined to uncover the
mysteries stirring up the city’s ancient, bloodthirsty specters. Can he
discover who, or what, is shattering the peace before Fall River runs red? Or
will he be the next victim?Part
mystery, part love story, The Haunting of Dr. Bowen reveals the eerie side of
Fall River as witnessed by the first doctor on the scene of the legendary
Borden murders.

An excerpt of The Haunting of Dr. Bowen, A Mystery in
Lizzie Borden’s Fall River

Prologue

“Never did I say to anyone that she had
died of fright. My first thought, when I was standing in the door, was that she
had fainted.”

Dr.Seabury Bowen shoved back the shock of white hair hanging over his
forehead and wiped a wrinkled hand across his stubbled chin.

His appearance, like his surroundings,
could stand a bit of major housekeeping, not that he cared a whit.

“Here, it’s here somewhere,” he mumbled.

The old man rummaged among the giant pile
of documents, books, and whatnot littering the large walnut desk in his study.
Several minutes later, and after the search through dozens of loose papers, he
saw the faded red book lying beneath a tottering pile. He pulled at it, sending
the rest of the stack falling like so much unwanted garbage.

The good doctor, but a shadow of his once- robust self, flipped the
pages. He stared at the offending journal entry before setting the book aside
with a heartrending sob.

Chapter One

“I
saw the form of Mr. Borden lying on the lounge at the left of the sitting-room
door. His face was very badly cut, apparently with a sharp instrument; his face
was covered with blood.”

The man reached toward him with long, lean fingers. Dr. Seabury Bowen
blinked and tried to make out the features of the unknown figure standing in
the corner. The unexpected visitor had a broad, dark face and what looked like
a band across his forehead. Bowen stretched out his arm in turn and jumped when
their fingers touched, the jolt surging through him like the electricity he
knew would soon replace all the gas lights.

“Seabury, dear, are you all right?” His wife, Phoebe, sounded concerned.
“What’s wrong?”

Bowen breathed hard. He bolted upright and held a hand on his chest,
trying to catch his breath. Still stunned, he gazed about the room, disturbed
at the odd shapes until he recognized familiar things… the bureau, the armoire,
the paintings on his bedroom walls. He swallowed and nodded.

“Ye-yes. I-I’m fine. A bad dream, that’s all it was. Just a dream.”

“A bad dream? Dear, you’re breathing so hard, your heart must be
pounding like a drum in Mr. Sousa’s band! Are you sure you’re fine?”

The doctor took his wife’s hand and kissed it, relieved to feel his
heartbeat return to normal. He had to admit his reaction worried him for a
minute, too. “I’m fine now, Phoebe. Really, it’s all right. Go back to sleep.
I’m too wrought up to rest. I think I’ll go downstairs and read awhile.”

He gave her a loving smile before he rose and slipped on his robe, his
thoughts in a whirl. To tell the truth, these dreams or hallucinations or
whatever they were appeared to be getting stronger and more frequent. Not that
he’d tell her, of course. It made Bowen wonder if he was losing touch with his
faculties, something he’d never dare mention. Nor did he want to even entertain
the thought, but he did. Am I going mad?
Am I?

Friday, August 04, 2017

I hesitate to invoke the rhyme
because it's been so overused (and is so tasteless) but it really is the best
and most succinct summary of the events of August 4, 1892:

Lizzie Borden took an ax,

Gave her mother forty whacks,

And when she saw what she had
done,

She gave her father forty-one.

Lizzie Borden, acquitted of
murdering her (step)mother and father with a hatchet, was found guilty in the
court of public opinion. Schoolchildren taunted her with the rhyme as she
continued living in the small town of Fall River, Massachusetts (albeit in a
much nice home, purchased with the funds she and her sister inherited upon
their wealthy father’s death). They rang her doorbell at all hours and ran,
screaming, before she could open it. They threw rocks at her windows.

Perhaps worse—since children’s
thoughtless cruelty is a given—carriage drivers would meet the train coming in
to Fall River and charge a fee to drive past Lizzie’s home, park outside, and
loudly narrate the details of the crimes, which she surely heard through her
walls.

Those details were horrific, such
that her 1893 trial was considered the first “trial of the century.” Every
major newspaper sent a reporter to sit in the crowded New Bedford courthouse
and jot down each nuance of emotion that crossed her face.

The back of Abby Borden’s skull
bore 19 blows, evidence of uncontrollable rage. It came out through forensics
that she must have faced her attacker and known her fate: one poignant blow was
on her forehead. Mrs. Borden had been killed first in an upstairs room and lay
cooling for several hours until her husband Andrew came home from his morning
tasks and lay down for a nap on the sitting room couch. The murderer attacked
him while he slept.

His skull showed 10 or 11 cuts,
roughly half of his wife’s, but proof that the killer was still furious hours
later. Both skulls were displayed in court to show jurors the reality of that
anger. They had been rendered down to bone by a doctor who boiled them,
according to the later report of his young son who was upset at the morbid
activity in his own kitchen. The Borden corpses had been secretly beheaded,
without the daughters’ permission, during a second autopsy at a cemetery
holding structure. The first had been performed in the Borden home’s dining room.
Lizzie fainted in court when tissue covering the skulls drifted to the floor,
prematurely revealing their placement in the doctor’s satchel. A juror was
overcome by the crime scene photographs that testimony paused while peers tried
to revive him. The facts of the case—and the murders of the elderly
couple—proved uneasy to talk about.

What was Lizzie so upset about, if
she was indeed the killer? Reputedly, her father’s miserliness, his spending
money on his wife’s family, and probably general indignation that she would
spend life as a spinster trapped in that house. Her oldest sister hadn’t
married, and suitors were few and far between for Lizzie. It didn’t help that
that August was insanely hot in an era before air-conditioning, that she had
her period in an era before ibuprofen, and that a hated uncle showed up for a
visit while her sister was away visiting friends.

Whatever the motive, the
intervening 125 years have spawned dozens of books, several movies (including
one to be released this year, with indie-movie goddess Chloe Sevigny playing
Lizzie, and Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame playing the Irish maid Bridget
Sullivan), and an incredible volume of speculation. Similar to O.J. Simpson,
who is to be released on probation, Lizzie Borden faced a nation that suspected
the jurors had been hoodwinked.

Visit the Lizzie Borden house in
Fall River today and you’ll see crime scene reenactments, tours of the home and
hear authors talk about the case. Its mystery endures.

Erika Mailman is the author of The Murderer’s
Maid: a Lizzie Borden Novel, which looks at the case from the point of view of
Bridget Sullivan, the only other person in the house that day besides Lizzie
and her parents.

LOOKING FOR LIZZIE BORDEN POSTS? Click below!

About Me

I write historical novels. The Witch's Trinity is about medieval witchcraft, Woman of Ill Fame is about a Gold Rush prostitute, and House of Bellaver is about a haunted 1800s house museum. The Murderer's Maid: a Lizzie Borden Novel tells the American legend from the point of view of the maid Bridget Sullivan.
I'm fascinated by a lot of stuff and blog about it: history, road trips, suffrage, museums, the Gold Rush, witchcraft, murder, Victorians, cursed Egyptian tombs.